During the 2005-06 Volvo Ocean Race, event organizers adopted the Save the Albatross campaign after becoming aware that around 100,000 albatross die each year after being caught on longline fishing hooks. In 2008-09 the race will increase efforts to protect these magnificent seabirds, and the new route will create exciting new opportunities for raising awareness and support for the campaign.

At talks held recently at the headquarters of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), British partner of BirdLife International, Dr Ben SULLIVAN, Global Seabird Programme Coordinator, welcomed the new route the Volvo Ocean Race will take in Asia.

'We are especially interested that the new route for the Volvo Ocean Race will visit Asia. This is a region from which the world's largest fishing fleets originate, and their support for the Save the Albatross Campaign is crucial,'

said Dr SULLIVAN.

Sailors have always felt a close affinity with the albatross, which spend long periods of their lives at sea, so the 2005-06 Volvo Ocean Race crews enthusiastically embraced the campaign. The crews observed, wrote about and filmed these magnificent seabirds, and, as a result, the race has significantly raised awareness and public support for the work of the new Albatross Task Force all around the world.

In Port Activities

In port, the crews took part in activities to highlight the campaign including escorting the media out into the open sea off Cape Town to observe albatross in flight and while they were briefly in Wellington New Zealand, the skippers publicly pledged their support for the albatross at a ceremony organized by BirdLife partner Forest & Bird.

The international group of sailors signed a large postcard that Forest & Bird delivered to the diplomatic missions of Chinese Taipei, Japan, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, Spain, Chile and Argentina. These countries have important longline fishing fleets or are albatross range states and have been encouraged to adopt seabird bycatch mitigation measures in their fisheries operations.

'As a sailor it's great to see albatross while you're out in the middle of nowhere. It can get pretty lonely when you're at sea for weeks on end, so seeing these awesome birds is a great sight for us,'

said Mike SANDERSON (NZL), skipper of the eventual race winner ABN AMRO ONE and 2006 ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year, at the time.

The Albatross Task Force

The Albatross Task Force is a group of specialists recruited to spend time at sea and on shore working with fishermen and showing them ways of albatross-friendly fishing. The Task Force currently working in South Africa, Brazil and Chile, with Argentina and Namibia and hopefully Uruguay coming on line soon. Setting up each task force member costs around Euro 37,000 a year.

There are three simple ways of reducing the number of albatross deaths: adding weights to fishing lines so that they sink quickly, setting lines at night and using bird-scaring devices such as streamers known as tori-lines which cost 75€ each. Where these methods are used, there is a dramatic reduction in seabird deaths.

UN Recognition

Only recently, the plight of the world's seabirds has been recognized by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization Committee on Fisheries. At a week-long meeting, BirdLife International - with backing from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA, Chile and Brazil - secured the Committee's support for the development of 'best-practice guidelines' for National Plans of Action to help reduce seabird bycatch.

Dr SULLIVAN, who was at the meeting, said, 'Seabirds, particularly albatross, are facing immense threats, more so than any other group of birds in the world. It's a genuinely good result that the world's fishing nations have recognized the importance of developing best practices to assist them in reducing the impact of their fisheries on seabirds.'

Of the 21 albatross species, 19 are threatened with extinction. Fishing vessels set lines with thousands of bated hooks, delivering them into the ocean at rate of two per second. Seabird bycatch happens when seabirds swallow baited hooks and drown, and it is a major threat to many of the albatross species.

Environment Microsite

ISAF has launched the ISAF Environment microsite at www.sailing.org/environment, where you will be able to find the ISAF Code of Environmentally Friendly Behaviour, links to successful environmental sailing initiatives around the world and all the latest news on sailing and the environment.

Tom Burton (AUS) and Alison Young (GBR) hit the right note in the Laser and Laser Radial at ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne as they took out the top honours and qualification spots to the 2015 ISAF Sailing World Cup Final.

It was double Australian gold in the Paralympic classes. Matt Bugg (AUS) came out on top in the 2.4mR whilst London 2012 Paralympic SKUD18 gold medallists Dan Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch (AUS) were triumphant in the two person keelboat.

Lithuania's Juozas Bernotas came out on top in the Men's RS:X whilst Russia's Stefania Elfutina was triumphant in the Women's RS:X. Both sailors claim the first Abu Dhabi ISAF Sailing World Cup Final spots whilst Jock Calvert (AUS) and Joanna Sterling (AUS) picked up the Oceanic spots for the Emirati finale.

There was some fast paced action in the 49er and 49erFX Medal Races at ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne as Nathan Outteridge & Iain Jensen (AUS) and Maia & Ragna Agerup (NOR) claimed the honours and Abu Dhabi final spots.

A tight group of five young Papua New Guinean (PNG) Laser sailors are stepping up their 2015 Pacific Games competition program using this week's ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne. PNG is one of 33 countries represented at the important Oceanic event, the largest Olympic sailing regatta in the southern hemisphere.

Melbourne, Australia will host the final Rio 2016 Paralympic Games qualification regatta in 2015. With just under one year until the event, the 2015 IFDS Worlds was launched at ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne.

ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne kick starts the journey to the 2015 ISAF Sailing World Cup Final in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates with qualification spots and top ranking points available in the Australian city.

Four boats in the Volvo Ocean Race celebrated rounding the venerated landmark of Cape Horn on Monday, a pleasure cruelly denied Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA) after the Chinese boat's mast was broken early in a dramatic day on Leg 5.

The wind played dirty tricks all day in Palma on the sailors and race committees who had to juggle with big shifts and different pressure. From 4 to 20 knots, and reaching 40 in some gusts, the wind turned around the bay playing with everybody's nerves.

Ghosting across the line in the inky blackness of a Mediterranean spring night, finally slicing through the finish line set on the very waters where some 40 odd years ago he cut his teeth as a young, aspiring sailor harbouring great dreams, at 01:47:00hrs local time Guillermo Altadill and his talented, ever reliable Chilean co-skipper Jose Muñoz secured second placed in this third edition of the Barcelona World Race, the round the world race for two crew which left the Catalan capital on December 31st 2014.

Algoa Bay brought lighter conditions on Sunday, and after a postponement waiting for the wind to settle, the race got underway in 7 knots of breeze from the south-east. Ted Conrads and Brian Haines from the USA were the pathfinders, and opened up the gate for the fleet as they sailed out to the right-hand side of the course.